


Predators

by Miggy



Category: Glee
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-19
Updated: 2010-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miggy/pseuds/Miggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sue Sylvester just wants one thing to go like she planned. Is that too much to ask?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predators

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through "Theatricality" but don't expect me to actually pay too much attention to continuity in a story that's all about the life of Sue Sylvester. (Especially since "Funk" promptly had a minor bit of jossing with the veganism. /fistshake)

### Puck

  
"Let's get some things straight, Puckerman. One, the media's been riding me due to my success and so I am thus in the spotlight in a way that few will ever experience. Two, you were the cheapest pool cleaner who doesn't rely on help trucked over the border in the dead of night." Sue Sylvester lowered her sunglasses. "And so because I don't want to risk the inevitable discovery of that workplace violation, I'm stuck with you."

Puck folded his arms across his chest. "Look, I do a good job."

"Like you did a good job with your turns during that paean to oversized posteriors? You were three-eighths off the beat."

"What? That's...." He searched his memory, and his vocabulary, before making his best guess. "We never actually performed 'I Like Big Butts,' we just sang it once when we were bored! How the hell did you even—"

"I have my ways." Her eyes narrowed. "If I don't get my money's worth I'm taking it out of your hide."

He drew back, dark eyes matching the slits hers had become. His jaw thrust defiantly. "Then you gonna let me get started? Because I charge by the hour and these instructions of yours count on that."

Her sunglasses flipped back into place. She spun on her heel. "Tell me when you're done. I want to put my piranhas in the pool."

Puck gave the requisite polite laugh until he realized that Sue Sylvester might be the one person who wasn't kidding there. "Uh, Ms. Sylvester? You can't put animals in a pool. The chlorine kills them."

"Not the ones I've been breeding."

* * *

It was a brutally hot day. Puck spent a lot of time around water with his business. There was a big difference between water in a pool and water in the air. "Humidity," they called it on the forecast. He called it "living in a sweaty man's armpit." Goddamn, he could really go for a beer right about then.

"I don't hear scrubbing," Sue said as she flipped a page in a cheerleading magazine. She was on the cover.

Puck turned his vacuum back on and just held back a grimace. It was bad business to scowl at customers. Sue Sylvester might be a crazy bitch, but the crazy bitch had an insane house. Her pool was something out of a Las Vegas resort. She had a lap pool in which she spent every morning between three and five. Next to that was the spa. And next to that was the training pool where the Cheerios practiced moves inspired by Olympic gold medal synchronized swimming routines.

If he could just force himself to deal with her shit until he got a long-term contract in hand, he'd be set for life.

"Hey, Puckerman." She shouted again to be heard over the hum of his vacuum. "I never thanked you."

Shocked at the words, he debated turning off his vacuum. Probably a bad idea. He yelled over the noise, "For what?"

"For knocking up Quinn Fabray, of course. If I'd relied on her classic but deathly dull Middle America good looks and talent, the Cheerios would have been on track to be as good as last year. And staying in one place is not acceptable to Sue Sylvester. I'm like a talent shark. If I stop moving, I die."

Puck frowned. It was a bad sign that Sylvester had come up with one of his lines.

"And now I have my multimedia extravaganza that blows away anything I've previously attempted. I'm even thinking of picking myself up some adorable Chinese exchange student so she can make fireworks. Or he. I don't discriminate."

No, "crazy bitch" didn't really begin to cover it. "Yeah, well. Welcome. I guess." He tried to go back to work, but the question that had bubbled up during their conversation had become too insistent to ignore. "Uh, Ms. Sylvester. Can I ask you something?"

"So long as those steroid-laden arms of yours keep cleaning my pool at a speed that justifies your still overpriced rates, fine."

"Did you seriously turn a track suit into a bikini?"

She lowered her magazine to the ground. Yes, she appeared to have done exactly that. "If you have an iconic image, you don't mess with it." Her hand gestured dismissively at him. "Not that you would know with that shaved head. Bad move, Ochocinco."

"I had to. Doctor." He spat out the word. "I'm growing it back."

"And I'm cutting off this conversation." She raised her magazine again.

He kinda wished she would put it back on the ground.

Sue Sylvester, under those godawful track suits, had a smokin' bod.

Puck shuddered when he realized what had just run through his mind. The humidity, already unpleasant, was suddenly oppressive. "Uh. I'm going to scrub the bottom. Up close. Better pressure that way."

She licked her thumb and flipped another page. "Good initiative. I don't entirely regret hiring you."

Puck ripped off his shirt, flung it aside, and leapt into the pool. His hand closed around the handle of the vacuum and then he was at the bottom, staying down there as long as his burning lungs could manage. It didn't do a damn thing for the pool for him to be down there. The cleaning pressure was fine either way. It helped with the pressure that came from seeing the fucking hottest set of cougar abs in the state, though.

Eventually, with only the bare minimum of breaths, he'd scrubbed the bottom of the pool. Twice. Damn, he couldn't do this forever. Maybe she'd have changed by then. Maybe she'd be in her full tracksuit again, not that bikini version. Maybe he could force her back into the Sue Sylvester slot she should be in rather than the Hot Client of the Day slot she had somehow claimed. To be on the safe side, Puck faced away from her when he rose from the pool. And when he toweled dry. And when he stretched out and flexed his sore, aching muscles for some desperate way to kill more precious seconds.

"Uh," he finally had to admit, turning, "I guess I'm done."

Sue Sylvester was staring at his ass.

She jerked abruptly and met his eyes.

Puck swallowed.

Her eyebrows moved together, then apart, then up in a fascinating dance.

"Only if I get a long-term contract for cleaning all three pools," Puck managed to say.

"Only if I like what I see."

Fuck yes. He was gonna be set for life.

This had to be the most responsible dad move ever.

 

### Artie

  
Will Schuester scratched his head and looked at the student he'd been asked to bring to Principal Figgins' office. The clock ticked loudly on the wall, echoing louder than it had any right to. Artie shrugged back at Mr. Schue. He'd been talking with Finn about setting up some Rock Band sessions on their Xboxes and suddenly a summons to the office came down the pike. None of this was making any sense.

"I would like to file a format complaint against Toy Poodle there and the _sexual predators_ he's been instructing," Sue Sylvester archly said.

"What?" Mr. Schue sputtered. "Sexual... did Puck do something?"

Sue actually seemed thrown off-balance. Blinking nearly a dozen times in succession was not a normal thing to do. "No!" she said, regaining her focus. "I am referring to that little monster."

Artie stared at the finger aimed at his nose, going nearly cross-eyed in his attempts to focus on it. "Uh, Principal Figgins, I really don't know what she's talking about."

While Mr. Schue seemed bemused by the entire thing, Figgins pounded his fist once and said, "Will, wipe that smirk off your face! Sexual harassment is a very serious matter and one that must be treated with all due concern when raised!"

"I swear, Mr. Schue, I didn't—"

"Don't lie, Firestone," Sue said. "It makes the angels cry. I see what you do to my Cheerios. To your own club members. Always staring at them. Undressing them with your eyes. Refusing to look them in the face and acknowledge them as people." Sue slapped the desk. "Clearly, Glee Club should be suspended until such time as all members have conducted and graduated from a full sensitivity training workshop. I can give you recommendations, Figgins. The best ones are in Maine."

"Sue." Mr. Schue rested his head in his hands. Artie was glad he was saying it, because he was unsure how to even go about pointing out the obvious. "He's in a wheelchair."

"You know, William, ignoring the handicapable's ability to engage in improper behavior doesn't respect them, it infantilizes them. Don't support his ogling. You disgust me."

"Uh. Principal Figgins?" Artie ventured. "It's just... I look straight ahead." He raised his hands helplessly. "I've gotten yelled at for it, but it's just where my eyes are. You know. The chair."

"Sue, he raises a fair point."

Sue drew back, her long body coiling with tension like a cat. "So you're not going to accept my complaint of sexual predation with the intent of shutting down Glee Club until such time as every member has completed sensitivity training."

Figgins lifted one eyebrow for a reply.

"Fine," Sue seethed and stood to leave. "Expect a chilling exposé on Schuester's use of laxatives in the club water cooler to keep everyone fit for their costumes." She nodded. "Oh, yes. I'd bring in some Starbucks, William."

Artie frowned as she stormed out. "Why did Ms. Sylvester start having a seizure or something when you mentioned Puck?"

Mr. Schue shook his head. "Dunno. Come on, we'd better go buy some drinks."

Finn had to take drums on their superawesome digital band, Artie decided. Because he was so taking vocals.

### Rachel

  
She knew she should have included an ice pack in her insulated _Mame_ lunch bag. She knew it. But Rachel Berry had just spent a little too long putting the finishing touches on her bento lunch box filled with sushi arranged in the shape of music notes. She was going to be late for school. And so she forgot her ice pack.

Meaning she had warm sushi for lunch.

Furthermore, as she had yet to master the art of making sushi that held together in anything like the proper form, she'd been trying to shovel stray bits of rice, seaweed, and fish into her mouth and pretend it was the real thing. Her goal of adding music to all aspects of her daily life had gone woefully unmet.

It shouldn't be a surprise that her stomach was now protesting. Why was her life such a tragedy? Or, in the grand dramatic tradition, if her life had been originally cast as a tragedy to further heighten the joy when it became a triumph of happiness and success, then when exactly would her life's path make that tonal shift toward something more tolerable?

Rachel sighed. And held a hand over her mouth. She wasn't going to make it to a toilet. An unexpected wave of sympathy for Quinn's morning sickness swept her as she darted for the nearest trash can.

"Berry," she heard after the door next to that can swung open.

"Um." She wiped her mouth. "Ms. Sylvester."

"I see you've left me a little present. Clean that up."

Rachel looked, befuddled, at the trash, then at Sue, then at the trash. "But it's... a trash can."

"Mouthy," Sue sneered. "That's what's wrong with the youth of America today. They refuse to accept responsibility for their own messes. 'Oh, the janitor will just clean up what I put in the trash can! It's his job!' That's slacker talk. You're a slacker, Berry. That's why you're short."

Rachel gathered her courage. Perhaps her attempt at making lunch had failed, but she would not falter in saying these words that deserved a voice. Although she did have to close her eyes to work up the necessary courage. "Ms. Sylvester, does it give you some sort of petty, spiteful joy to deride students who, under the restrictions placed on them by law, cannot accept the responsibilities we do so desperately crave in life? You mock us for not having goals or work ethics, and yet we are legally unable to fully pursue the paths toward those dreams until we reach some arbitrary age of legal majority. This school is intended to be the place to prepare us for that responsibility. I find your abuse of your power and legal status unacceptable for an instructor."

And then she held her breath.

Ms. Sylvester didn't say anything.

Rachel cracked one eye open.

She was stalking down the hallway after Mercedes and probably hadn't heard anything Rachel had said.

That was almost certainly for the best.

### Mercedes

  
"Now that the reality of your decision has had a chance to fully pound its way into your thick skull, I'll ask you again. Do you realize what you are passing up?"

Mercedes clutched her books to her chest and swanned past Sue. "The chance to starve myself? Judge myself by what everyone else thinks I should look like?"

"Those are loser answers. Do you want to be a loser? Did Berry infect you with her stench?" Sue looked her over. "Is that why you're short?"

"If being a loser means that I don't have to drink _sand_, then I'm fine with that."

Sue snorted. "I don't authorize any additional ingredients to my Cheerios cocktail. I can't be held accountable for independent modifications: sand, ground-up caffeine pills, duck embryos."

"Gross." Mercedes ducked through a nearby door.

"Despite my lack of functioning ovaries, uterus, or gentle womanly heart," Sue said, following her in, "I do in fact qualify for the girls' restroom."

Mercedes spun around and held up one finger between her and her pursuer. "No," she ordered. "I am about to head into a stall, pull down my pants, and pee. And I do not want to have any Cheerios business up in my face when I am trying to do that."

"You pee on your own time, missy, and you're on Sue Sylvester Daylight Time right now."

Harrumphing, Mercedes asked, "Why are you making such a big deal about this, anyway? You kick people off all the time. Someone quits and you try to get her back on? What makes me so special?"

Sue seethed, "Because you quit. No one quits. And no one quits right before we head to a competition with a routine built around your oversized Jennifer Hudson voice. I don't know whether to be more bewildered or apoplectic. Will I have a new routine? Yes. And it will be glorious." As soon as she got her chunk of the budget back from Schuester, she was hiring a skywriter. "Do I think you are a perfect cog for my machine, ignoring the function you are clearly designed for? Yes."

"Wow, Coach Sylvester." Mercedes smiled beatifically. "You really know how to make a girl feel special. It's not every teacher that calls me a _cog._"

Sue pursed her lips. "Fine. Go drop trou." This girl was stubborn. She didn't like stubborn unless it was coming from her. It would take a minute to think of the right angle.

She was waiting for her when Mercedes pushed the door back open, earning a wildly demonstrative eyeroll. "You stayed here to listen to me pee? You're kinda creepy, Coach."

"I'll ignore that insult, Jones, just like you're ignoring the insult you're giving to your supposed best friend."

"What?"

"You join the Cheerios with Kurt, spend the time to learn routines with the two of you, and then leave him hanging out to dry? You force him to completely relearn every single move as a solo artist? And learn all these new moves in an ridiculously short amount of time, up to _my_ standards?" Sue shook her head sadly. "I'm someone who, when meeting President William Jefferson Clinton, informed him that he buys an inferior brand of cigar. I'm impossible to please. And you left Hummel to face me alone."

Mercedes bit her lip.

"The Cheerios are brutal people, Mercedes. I should know. I picked every single one of them. To remind myself of me. If you're doing a pyramid, there are all those other people around you. Now he's the only singer. He is the only one drawing my attention for it. And I identify every single mistake that all the other Cheerios can hound him for." A hungry, cruel smile spread. "Do you really think you're being a good friend by leaving him alone with me?"

Mercedes met her gaze levelly. "You're right."

Sue nearly chortled in satisfaction.

"He's the only one getting attention for singing on the Cheerios." Mercedes' calm expression morphed into an utterly secure, happy smile. "Right now he's hearing your yells, but at the performance? It'll just be applause. For him. And since he is my best friend, if it was too much? I would have heard it from him, not you. So thanks, Coach. You just convinced me leaving the Cheerios really was the best move I could have made."

Sue watched Mercedes push open the door and leave behind their conversation, boggling at the fact that her ability to impose her will upon the world like some Greco-Roman god had spun away from her so wildly. This recruitment failure. Berry daring to vomit within two hundred yards of Sue's office. Figgins ignoring her attack on Glee Club. And somehow she had signed a cleaning contract that included full price for the winter months, when the water would lay untouched below the pool covers.

Damn, that Puckerman kid was good.

"Glee," Sue seethed, slamming her fist against the wall. She felt metal buckle under the blow. A moment later a shower of generic brand tampons streamed from their dispenser and landed on her feet.

"_Glee_."

### Finn

  
Finn did a double-take as he finished his go at the day's exercise: randomly drawn duet partners for each randomly drawn song, to help everyone break their habits. "Uh, Artie?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you staring at the ceiling?"

Artie heaved out a sigh. "Long story."

Weird. He looked to his other side, where Santana and Matt were trying to keep Puck's attention focused. "And what's up with you lately?"

Puck stared somewhere a thousand miles past the whiteboard. "Dude. I feel dirty. And I dunno if it's in the good or bad way."

Weird.

Finn shifted his weight as the next duet was drawn: Rachel. Kurt. Some song from _Chicago._ And then they both started singing the song over each other rather than making it into a real duet, it practically turned into a throwdown right on top of the piano, and Mr. Schue had to send them to the corner to work it out while someone else went. Back to the hat for Mr. Schue's hand.

Man, he really shouldn't have had those two extra-tall lattes when Mr. Schue treated them that afternoon. Gotta pee. Gotta pee bad. Finn shifted back and forth in his seat until Mercedes told him to leave, already. "Sorry really gotta go I'll be right back," he yelped as Quinn and Tina finally finished singing about how they were sailing on a River of Dreams.

River.

Water.

Not helping.

Walk faster walk faster.

"Lurch!" Ms. Sylvester stalked toward him, holding up a hand commandingly.

Finn started doing a little dance where he stood.

"A warning, Mr. Homm. I want answers about Glee Club and I've identified you as a break in the line." She leaned in. "You have the mental fortitude of a rain-soaked paper towel. You are the weakest link. And I will break you."

Think about dry things. The Sahara Desert. Q-tips. Toast.

"In case you were wondering, Mr. Homm is from Star Trek."

He really hadn't been.

"The Next Generation."

Oh jeez. "Sorry Ms. Sylvester but I really gotta...." He ran past her, even though he knew he might well be risking his life by ignoring her orders to stay put. And then a commotion erupted in the Glee room behind him. He couldn't turn around. Bathroom. Bathroom.

He'd probably just missed something interesting.

### Brittany &amp; Santana

  
A new day. Sue decided to start it off in her favorite way: yelling. "You two are useless! Useless! Why am I even keeping you on the Cheerios if you're unable to follow a simple order?"

Brittany leaned over to Santana and whispered loudly enough for Sue to overhear, "What order?"

Santana, wary of Sue, said behind her hand, "You know. We joined at first because she told us to ruin the club?"

"Oh, right. We've been having so much fun, I forgot."

Sue held a portable fan in front of her face and concentrated on its steady hum instead of her girls' idiocy. "And then I hear from Principal Figgins that, of all things, one of my Cheerios is being cited for..." The irony was too great. She would laugh if rage weren't choking her. "Sexual predation."

Any student called to Sue's office was nervous, but at that statement Santana looked ready to bolt through the door. Even though it was closed. "Finn was totally into it, he said yes, it's not my fault he can't keep it together for more than a minute," she said all in one breath.

"What? Lopez, I don't care about..." Sue held up a finger and corrected herself. "While I'm sure that information could be shared with Rachel Berry in a show of hilariously ego-crushing timing, I'm referring to the little move that you pulled, Brittany."

Brittany blinked guilelessly. "But I only ever just made out with Finn. At some party. I think he was drunk. And then he started talking about a mailman when I let him touch my boob."

Sue squeezed her stress ball and felt it explode inside her white-knuckled fist. She threw its remnants in the trash with the rest. "I'm not talking about Finn, dammit! Of any person you possibly could have gone after at this school, you picked Artie Abrams?"

"Yes? We were by each other because we got pulled for You Give Love a Bad Name." Brittany started ticking the events off on her fingers. "And I realized that I'd made out with, like, everyone except him." She added proudly, "Including a gay guy. And so I grabbed Artie and kissed him. Just for a few seconds." Brittany shrugged. "I forgot about him when I was keeping track of my record."

"She means she overlooked him," Santana smirked.

Brittany blinked at her. "I don't get it." Confusion was replaced with a broad smile. "He's a really good kisser."

"Which I'm sure is a point of appeal for his _girlfriend_ who complained to _Schuester_, who pranced like a cartoon deer down to Figgins' office to report that one of my Cheerios was a...." Another stress ball exploded in her hands. "Sexual predator. And now the entire squad has to take sensitivity training."

How the hell had Schuester managed to get Brittany's identity pinned entirely on the Cheerios? It had happened in Glee, between two members of that club, and yet it was the Cheerios who suffered. Truly, Sue thought, this was the Bible and she was Job.

They looked at their hands and said nothing.

"Your demonstrated incompetence almost leads me to believe that the two of you are getting some sort of perversely genuine enjoyment out of that room full of Kids Incorporated rejects. No. Don't answer. I don't know if I could take the heartbreak of hearing the truth." Sue leaned forward. Her voice dropped to a low growl, quiet enough that both had to lean in with her. "So here is what you're going to do to stay in my good graces. You are going to report on everything the members of Glee Club do. Everything. To anyone who might have a grudge with them. This school has rules, ladies. And even the most imbecilic enemy can pin one inappropriate moment to the wall like some glorious butterfly of Schuester's destruction."

That she had already prepared "How to Take Down Glee Club in Three Easy Steps" fliers to pass out to chosen members of the student body would help. (Step One: Listen. Step Two: Research. Step Three: Report.) Sadly, she couldn't be sure that the girls would take care of things on their own.

The most thuggish athletes, the most self-righteous of the student council, the entirety of the prom committee... each and every one of them had been provided with a handy form and library reference sheet. For any reported Glee Club activity they could find the appropriate book of Ohio school codes, research any violated statues, and provide the information in the tear-away form neatly color-coded by student organization.

The group that provided her with the best information would have the honor of mowing her lawn.

Once again, William McKinley High School would move in the way Sue Sylvester wanted. Oh yes. Indeed it would.

Sue leaned back, arms behind her head. "I would strongly recommend that you not let me down, ladies. And Brittany? Never tell me why you were wearing a lobster on your head."

### Kurt

  
Kurt tucked his water bottle into the vintage attaché case chosen to match his day's ensemble. Every afternoon had been filled: Glee Club twice, Cheerios twice, and a new media project he'd started with Mercedes rounded things off. (Artie had also asked him about some video game, but he'd be damned if he'd let Abrams take vocals.)

Social obligations had claimed him every single day of the week.

He paused, considered that, and walked out of the locker room with a smile. For someone at the bottom of the totem pole, his total hours booked were oddly like those of a popular kid. He'd muse on life's subtle ironies while his hands had their paraffin bath that evening.

The faint strains of Lady Gaga started up in his case. He quickly dug through and retrieved his cell in time to catch his father's call. "Hi Dad, what's up?"

"Hey, Kurt. Just got out of the shop now, the install took a little longer than I expected." Dad had given him an upgrade to the Navigator's sound system for a very early birthday present. "Meant to be there to pick you up when practice was done, but I'll be there in about ten, okay?"

"Thanks, Dad. I'll be by the practice field. And thank you again." Dad really loved hearing 'practice field,' he could tell.

Fiddling with his phone ate up a few minutes. Mr. Schue had assigned them the week's new assignment and Kurt often used that as an excuse to change his ringtone. But he really liked Gaga. His foot tapped against the pavement as the minutes ticked on. He enjoyed the social cachet granted by the Cheerios uniform, but at the same time he'd chosen his attaché to match his civilian clothing. Perhaps he should have changed.

Oh, there was Dad driving his baby toward him. It was good to have it back. Kurt happily bounded off the curb and ran to the passenger's seat. "No thanks," he said to the offer of switching. Dad always got tense when he was in a car with anyone else driving.

"Hey," Dad said when they had started to pull out of the lot. "That girl's on your team, right?"

It was an obvious answer: the blonde standing under a tree, looking worried, was indeed in a Cheerios uniform. But the matter of why she had been left there was unanswered. "Yes," Kurt said, brow furrowing in mild concern. "Mind if we pull over?"

"Hi," Becky said when they stopped. "My mom's late."

Dad leaned across Kurt to ask her, "Need a ride home?" He nodded toward the back seat. "Hop on in."

She smiled. "Thanks." Only after buckling herself in did she share her address. "Mom says you always have to buckle up."

Dad nodded and pulled out to the road once she was secure. "Your mom's right. So you guys are working hard for Nationals, huh?"

Kurt looked over his shoulder at Becky and smiled. "The dancers are giving themselves blisters, I'm sure."

She beamed back. "Kurt's our star. He's in front of everyone."

Dad seemed pleased to hear that, which made something in Kurt's chest swell with pride. He tapped his fingers along with the radio and didn't say a word about Dad's chosen '80s power rock station. He could redo his presets later. Those good feelings vanished abruptly when they turned the last corner to the given address and saw an ambulance in one of the driveways. _Please_, Kurt thought. _Don't be 1241._

Becky started panicking when she saw.

It was 1241.

"Oh, Jesus," Dad whispered. He pulled the car along the street opposite the house and parked. "Kurt, stay with her. I'm going to find out what... find out."

Kurt twisted around to take Becky's hand firmly in his. "It's okay." They'd had to call an ambulance for his mom. "It's all okay." It hadn't been okay. "It could be something little." It had been something huge.

She unfastened her seatbelt and locked her arms around his neck, crying. He patted her awkwardly, as best he could, and tried to keep his mind in the present.

Dad's face appeared in the window. "It's okay," he said. Something in his eyes was tense with memory, too. "She was changing a lightbulb. Slipped. It's her right leg. Couldn't use the pedals, so couldn't drive herself. She'll be fine." He exhaled. "She'll be fine. Becky, they need to keep space in the ambulance clear for your mom, so we'll drive you there, okay?"

She nodded, still wiping away tears. "She's gonna be okay?"

It was funny how sadness and joy could overlap so thoroughly. "Your mom is going to be okay," Kurt promised her. "Come on. Buckle back up, we'll take you."

Becky's mom was safely in a bed when they got there, but was doused with painkillers. A fracture in two places. Ouch. Kurt winced. "Dad," he whispered. "I'm going to call someone, be right back." He found a quiet corner in a corridor. Becky needed a friend, not just a teammate.

"Kurt told me," Brittany said, holding out her arms for a hug as soon as she saw Becky. "But it's all going to be okay. Okay?" Coming from her, you couldn't help but believe it. Nothing could ever truly be wrong in Brittanyworld. The happiest place on earth.

"We can stay, if you want," Dad assured him. "Becky, you want us to stay?"

Becky, clearly tired from the emotional wringer of the afternoon, had laid her head on Brittany's chest. Brittany was carefully French braiding her hair. "No. That's okay. Thank you very much. My dad's coming, too."

"You did real good with that," Dad said after they'd driven halfway home in silence.

Kurt watched the houses fly by. "I miss Mom."

"Me too."

* * *

Kurt peered through the vents in his locker door and saw one of the thugs who'd threatened him not a week earlier getting angry at Brittany. She might not be Tina or Mercedes, but his brain had apparently decided the same instant reaction was earned for anyone with the stamp of "Glee Girl." He slammed the door closed and stalked over to join her before he wholly realized what he was doing. "I thought I told you, Karofsky," he said, even as the more logical part of his brain told him to run away like a tiny little squirrel, "don't pick on girls."

"It's okay." Brittany brushed off the offended mountain of a player. "He was just mad that I ditched him on Friday. I told him how I was busy at the hospital and couldn't come but he's still yelling."

Oh. She'd planned a date with him even after the bullying? That was disappointing. Not unexpected, he supposed, but disappointing. He was really just in costume for the squad, after all, while they were in uniform. Pretending. The real cheerleaders like her probably didn't see him as a true member.

"And then," Brittany continued, "I told him that I probably didn't want to date him anyway because he looks like a mean Shrek."

Kurt smiled proudly at her and extended an arm. She took it. Then she started petting the soft skin of that hand like it was a cat.

"Swear to God, Hummel," Karofsky seethed, "if the coach wouldn't throw me off the team for getting my third suspension this semester? _You'd_ be in the hospital."

"Life's a funny thing, isn't it?" Kurt smirked. "Considering our respective performances when I was wearing those ridiculously oversized shoulderpads known as football uniforms, versus what I've seen cheering at the hockey games? I'm more likely to get an athletic scholarship than you ever are. Come on, Brit." He patted her wrist. "I love your new bangs."

"But I only took off a quarter inch."

"It really opens up your eyes."

They walked off arm-in-arm. Neither saw Karofsky pull out a piece of paper, elbow a teammate in the side, and head for the library.

* * *

"Sit down, Mr. Smithers. I have some yelling to do."

Kurt's wide eyes looked frantically around Sue Sylvester's office. This was a very, very bad way to end his Monday. He'd gotten screamed at less than most of the squad during lunch practice. (Sue liked to slot extra practices during lunch because she said they shouldn't be eating, anyway.) Mostly she'd spent her time comparing the dancers' moves to a particularly rare species of tortoise. He'd thought that was a good sign. Was she just saving up her bile for some private and intense discussion of his many and precise faults? "Should I close the door?"

"No. Let them hear. It'll keep the sheep in line." She hissed out, "You. You and Brittany. You had to be the ones causing trouble. It couldn't be the straight-up Glee freaks, no. The Cheerios already suffered because of her. I hope you'll enjoy the team sensitivity training, by the way. We fly to Bangor next week."

"What?"

"And now I am faced with quite the dilemma, Mr. Hummel. I came back to my office to discover I could use your actions to shut down Glee Club." She pulled out a photocopied flier with angry ballpoint scribbles all over it.

He gasped. "I don't even know what—"

"But if I did," she said, steamrolling over him, "it might affect my squad. Who knows how Figgins will be feeling today? So. How far do I push my demonstrably backfiring luck this week in the pursuit of grinding Will Schuester under my heel?" A pencil snapped in her hand. "Why couldn't you be anyone else?"

Kurt felt nearly ready to cry. "What did I do wrong?"

"I have it under good authority that you violated..." She looked at the flier. "Ohio School Board Code 32-A, Subsection Nineteen!" Sue barked. She slammed a heavy book in front of him. "What do you have to say for yourself, Hummel?"

"I really don't know what I did wrong, Coach Sylvester. I promise. I don't." He swallowed. "I don't know what that number means."

"Let's find out together then, shall we?" Her thin, reptilian smile only broadened as she flipped through the pages. "Here we go. Improper transport of a special education stude... Hummel." Her voice lost its wicked humor. Ice replaced it. "Did you do something to Becky?"

"My dad and I gave her a ride?"

"Don't lie to me, Hummel," she snapped, seeming genuinely angry in a way he'd seldom seen from her. This wasn't Sue Sylvester's typical show of dominance. This was true, genuine fury. He caught something in her eyes that, bizarrely, reminded him of how Dad looked when he was remembering Mom's ambulance. "The code is for students who, without parents' knowledge or consent, transport special education students to a non-home destination and _leave them there_."

Oh. Oh, that sounded terrible put that way. It really did. He felt his face turn red as he tried desperately to explain, "We offered her a ride home because her mom was late and then when we got there, there was an ambulance in the driveway."

Sue drew back. "What?"

"And so we gave her a ride to the hospital. To follow her mom. And then I called Brittany and she came over until Becky's dad got there. Because Becky and Brittany are friends." He swallowed again, convulsively. "I didn't think I was doing anything bad. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I would do that for anyone on the squad. Anyone. Anyone."

"Close the door."

He did so. His palms were sweaty. Appalling. "Please don't hit me, Coach Sylvester. I bruise like a peach."

"You are not allowed to talk in the next ten seconds, Hummel." She rose from her desk. He started shaking visibly.

And then Sue Sylvester hugged him.

Kurt froze, more terrified than he would have been if she'd pulled a gun.

Before stepping back she whispered in his ear, so close that he could feel her breath, "If you ever tell anyone I did this, I will shave your head, glue the hair to your face in a lumberjack beard, and ship you to Canada." She pulled free. He didn't dare move. "Now I have to think of the most appropriate response to this attempt to manipulate me. Me. Oh yes. I will regain control of this school, Kurt. I will regain control in a blaze of unspeakable glory. Get out of my sight while I plot."

He did.

* * *

At some point, Sue Sylvester really needed to be called on her misbehavior. She terrorized the school, from faculty to students. She turned brutality into an art form and like an artist felt compelled to outdo herself. He could see why Madonna was such an inspiration. If one of Sue's creations, one of her insults or schemes was allowed to stand, the next one would be even greater. Even less acceptable. And then she would cross lines too big to ignore. Like she had today.

But those football players had turned Kurt's life into a constant stream of tension and fear and pain for years on end. They preyed on him. Sue preyed on everyone. He'd feel guilty about it later, but right at that moment he felt happy that William McKinley's apex predator was on his side.

"Coach Sylvester?"

"Yes, Jack McFarland?"

Relatively speaking, of course.

He struggled for the right way to phrase his question as he watched the firefighters run to the burning wreck in the parking lot. There didn't seem to be any way but direct. "Did you set Karofsky's car on fire?"

"It was a Pinto. They shouldn't be allowed on the road in the first place. It's amazing it lasted this long without exploding." The façade dropped and she chortled once, low. "They'll never be able to prove a thing. I wore gloves. And ninja slippers."

"Oh." He stared at the flames. "You know, for a more subtle approach, the worst thing for a car is sand in the oil reservoir. It takes a long time to cause the damage and it's irreversible. Completely ruins the entire engine block."

She squinted at him like she was seeing a complete stranger in his Cheerios uniform.

"I help my dad at his auto shop. He's done some full engine replacements for that 'joke.' By that point the owners never know who put it in, either."

She clapped firmly him on the shoulder. Her hands were very strong. He tried not to flinch. "You're going to win me Nationals."

"Coach Sylvester? You're hurting me."

"I know."

They watched the smoke plumes curl into the air.

"Do you think Puckerman would want to join the Cheerios, Hummel?"

"What?"

"Nothing."


End file.
